A virtuous person loves the right and the good. Virtue is not behavior, though it nearly always results in behavior. Actions are the outworking of a person’s virtue, which is cultivated into his or her character. Under this Christian ethical system, any given choice is a function of virtue.
Battle For the American Mind, by Pete Hegseth with David Goodwin, pg.165
[Progressives] don’t believe the law of God is written on the hearts of man. They don’t believe objective Truth exists and is discernible by reason. The Left, especially in our classrooms, has dismissed seeking objective Truth, and replaced it with their truth. Modern leftists didn’t make this happened overnight. They had progressive forerunners, most of whom they never met, intellectuals and practitioners who, without knowing what the future would hold, went to war with the foundation of Western civilization when those foundations were still strong in America. Separated from their Christian source, older American ideals were “cut flowers”—nice to look at, but destined to die.
Battle For the American Mind, by Pete Hegseth with David Goodwin, pg.122
After the mid-1960s, the progressive hangover began. Art and music took to the base, the abstract, and the ugly. The predictable outcome of the anti-authority, free-sex, anti-family, and drug-friendly culture from the mid-1960s did untold damage. The progressive story continues today, but now with more power.
Battle For the American Mind, by Pete Hegseth with David Goodwin, pg.121
it’s striking how quickly soft-on-crime policies at the state and local level destroy your day-to-day sense of safety. Progressive criminal justice “reforms,” such as defunding the police, ending cash bail, refusing to prosecute misdemeanors, letting thousands of convicted felons out of prison early, and slashing the prison population, are the most obvious contributors to the escalating violent crime problem in blue cities.
Lawlessness Is a Choice, by Miranda Devine. Imprimis, 10/25, Volume 54/Issue 10
Is it not ironic that the worldview proclaiming the corruption of humankind [Christianity] has led to so much good, while worldviews proclaiming the goodness of humankind have led to so much corruption? Marxism is the clearest example, having staked its credibility in direct opposition to biblical truth. It led to the slaughter of more than one hundred million people, more than twice the combined dead from World Wars I and II. Ideas have consequences. Good ideas have good consequences, and bad ideas have bad ones.
Jeff Myers & David A. Noebel, Understanding the Times: A Survey of Competing Worldviews, pg. 459
A “progressive shibboleth that has turned blue cities across the country into lawless hellholes … holds that people who commit crimes have no agency—that they are helpless victims of circumstance. Therefore, any attempt to hold them accountable by arresting them or putting them in jail is unjust—it further victimizes them. The obvious result of this logic is that criminals are emboldened and their real victims become helpless hostages to lawlessness.
Lawlessness Is a Choice, by Miranda Devine. Imprimis, 10/25, Volume 54/Issue 10
Around 1900, the Progressives effectively scuttled the very idea that we should look to the past for insights about anything—certainly for education. Progressives built a “history-phobic” value system into our social studies mind-set. Old is yesterday. Old is irrelevant. Old is outdated. Progressives sunk the very idea that we could or should look to the past for insights about how to live or learn. This is why few, if any, modern public or Christian schools study much history before America’s founding.
Battle For the American Mind, by Pete Hegseth with David Goodwin, pg.90-91
The following was on “True Stories” Facebook page on 12/4/25. Many “Thought Provoker” quotations have come from Thomas Sowell’s books.
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Thomas Sowell sat in a Harlem public library as a teenager and stared at an economics book he barely understood, then whispered to himself that he would keep reading until the world made sense. That quiet promise turned a high school dropout into one of the most influential thinkers of the last century.
Sowell grew up in poverty so sharp it shaped every instinct he carried.
He left home at seventeen. He held jobs that paid just enough to survive. He joined the Marine Corps during the Korean War and trained as a photographer because it was the only skill that offered a future. But the real turning point came when he discovered education not as obligation but as escape.
After the Marines he enrolled at Howard University. Professors noticed his intensity and recommended he transfer to Harvard. He did, graduating in 1958, then continued on to Columbia and finally the University of Chicago, where he studied under Milton Friedman.
His intellect was undeniable, but what made him different was the clarity with which he questioned assumptions from every side of the political spectrum.
Sowell’s early academic work focused on labor markets and economic history. He challenged widely accepted ideas about inequality, race, and policy, presenting data in ways that irritated both conservatives and liberals because he refused to bend arguments to ideology. He prized evidence over applause.
His book Black Education: Myths and Tragedies, published in 1972, sparked national debate. Sowell argued that good intentions often produced damaging results when separated from real world incentives. Colleagues warned him that taking unpopular positions could cost him promotions and grants. He wrote anyway.
At the Hoover Institution he produced some of his most influential work. Basic Economics became a global teaching text. His columns dissected public policy with a precision that made supporters cheer and critics bristle. He never softened his tone for popularity. He believed clarity mattered more than comfort.
Behind the scenes, he lived quietly. He photographed landscapes. He mentored students who were startled by how generous he was with his time. He never saw himself as a celebrity thinker. He saw himself as a man who owed the truth to the kid in the library who once struggled to understand the first pages of an economics book.
Thomas Sowell did not chase acceptance. He chased understanding. In the process he became a voice impossible to ignore, a thinker whose ideas continue to challenge, confront, and force readers to reconsider what they believe.
I’ve read the following books by Thomas Sowell and highly recommend every one of them:
Inside American Education
The Vision of the Anointed
Intellectuals and Society
Discrimination and Disparities
Dismantling America
Black Rednecks and White Liberals
And this one is on my shelf of books waiting to be read:
Conquests and Cultures: An International History
